Many media categories, such as music, home video, books, and television, have been substantially impacted by the advent of digital distribution, creating significant growth opportunities for some but painful value erosion for many others. Typically, we have seen value migrate from media incumbents to device makers and global internet players. Now, with the growth of e-readers and tablets such as the Kindle and the irad, will the magazine and newspaper publishing industry suffer the same fate?
To date, the availability of free content on the internet has diluted content providers' (e.g., publishers) ability to sell print products. That has contributed to print advertising declines, and online advertising has not made up for the loss. Some industry observers foresee a continuing and inevitable slow decline in revenues, based on value migration to tech players, similar to the decline in other media sectors. However, others believe that the industry has a chance to renew subscription revenue growth through product and business model innovation, such as the development of interactive periodicals.